Working

I don't have any pictures to post today. I have been working. My students are suppose to work 9 hours per week on ALEKS. I check their hours on Wednesday mornings and send them an email update on their progress. At noon I meet with which ever of my students happens to show up in the computer lab for assistance. Today that was nobody, but usually I have 2 or 3.

Next semester I will most likely be teaching two classes using ALEKS. My Wednesdays will be even busier. And I may have to work another day a week too. We'll see.

My sister's quilt is still on the basting table. I got as far as winding several bobbins and threading my machine with the thread I will use for the quilting. I hope that tomorrow I will actually be able to start quilting it. However, I have chores to do tomorrow too - grocery store and laundry.

Fall

I made this quilt a little over a year ago, but I am thinking about Fall today so I thought I'd post a photo of my "Fall" quilt. The name of the quilt is "The Leaves are Turning." The pattern was in an issue of Quiltmaker magazine. My mom appliqued all the leaves and gave them to me along with the backing fabric, binding fabric, the pattern and all the left over fabrics from her making the blocks. I finished the quilt adding my own border. It hangs in our dining room at this time of year. Parker likes it because each block has a match. He likes to find the matches. Can you find the matches?

This Mornings Work

This is what I've been doing this morning, basting. This is my sister's quilt. She won the fabrics used to make the center about 10 years ago - about the time kid number 2 was born. She now has 5 kids. When she got the top made, I told her that I would quilt it for her as a gift. She provided the backing fabric, a nice blue flannel, and the binding fabric. After I quilt it I will make the binding and attach it to the front for her. She wants to whip stitch the binding to the back herself. I had to piece the backing. I decided to iron the fabric before piecing it and it's a good thing I did. There was a small hole in the fabric so I had to cut that out and piece in another section. Luckily my sister bought plenty of backing fabric.

Farmer's Market Goodies

Yesterday, like most Saturday mornings lately, we went to the local Farmer's Market. Here is a sample of what we bought. Not pictured is a tomato the we had already eaten before I thought to take a picture. The yellow melon in the background is a canary melon. It is a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew melon. When you cut it open it is orange and green inside and very sweet. YUM! The lady said that the yellowness of the outside it the ripeness indicator. So the yellower the better. Parker bought the apple to take to his teacher tomorrow. We sampled some and if I hadn't already spent all but a dollar of my cash we would have bought more - next week.

Tote Bags

I'm going to be teaching my guild how to make these bags at our October meeting. I just love tote bags! These are roughly the same size as the grocery store bags you can buy. I use them for my groceries and Wal-mart purchases and many other things. They are certainly more stylish than the store versions and they are washable. The blue one below was made by my 9 year old niece, so they are easy to make as well. The original pattern is from Valori Wells' blog.

I have not deviated from her pattern much. However, for the blue bag below we used regular cotton quilting fabric instead of home decorator fabric so I had to adjust the cutting instructions. We also used Craft-Fuse to add stiffness to the lining since regular quilting cotton fabric is not as heavy as home decorator weight fabric. I like the pattern best made with home decorator fabrics but these are more expensive and harder to find in my area. I got all my home dec. fabrics from the clearance icon at eQuilter.

Textures 1

I finished my textures experiment yesterday. It's okay, but I don't really like it. I think this is because I didn't have a clear picture of what I wanted before I started. I just started. The first two sections I did are more free-form while the last two are more organized sashiko designs. It has served it's purpose though. I learned that I prefer to do the more free-form stitches that don't require marking. BUT I like the finished look of the more organized, geometric sashiko designs. (I shouldn't be surprised. It's the mathematician in me that likes the geometry) I titled this "Textures 1" thinking I may like to experiment with this idea further. I have several other projects that require my attention now though so it will be a while before I get back to this.

Applique Kitchen Towels

I have a whole stack of these plaid kitchen towels. I think my mom gave them to me some time ago. I wanted them to applique on and I'm finally getting around to actually doing it. This is a sample of what I've done so far. I am giving these as gifts to friends.